In this event, players will face each other with no objectives! Battle for KILL POINTS; with a random twist. At the beginning of each round, a die will be rolled on the TERRAIN TABLE to determine the terrain type.At the beginning of each players turn beyond the 1st, they will roll 5 dice. Resolving in sequential order from 1-6, they will apply one of the following effects to a unit they own.On a roll of:1 - D6 MORTAL WOUNDS TO ONE OF YOUR UNITS2 - D3 MORTAL WOUNDS TO ONE OF YOUR UNITS3 - HEAL D3 WOUNDS TO AN OPPONENT'S UNIT OF THEIR CHOICE4 - +1 TO ATTACK FOR ONE OF YOUR UNITS5 - HEAL D3 WOUNDS FOR ONE OF YOUR UNITS6 - HEAL D6 WOUNDS FOR ONE OF YOUR UNITS

Each player will roll for their own units when dealing/healing wounds. They may be stacked on the same unit, as long as each is resolved in order. (i.e. you would any wounds in order, and if the unit survives; you may then continue to apply afflictions/bonuses) You may use a Command point to reroll your entire 5 dice at the beginning of each turn; however you keep the results of the 2nd roll.To score points towards your total kill points; you must have made the final blow against an opponents' unit. If a unit is destroyed during the Turning of the tides, and the unit suffers enough wounds to remove it from play, that doesn't count towards the kill points.

Round setup starts at 11:45am. Please be there and ready to deploy at 12pm. Please pre-register. 3 round minimun. 8+ players, we will do 4 rounds.

General plan: It appears you roll 5 dice and see what the heals and damages are, then assign them. I want to save my command points to handle an obsessive damage rolls during the turning of the tides effect. Smaller damage should be balanced out with the healing and should go on a multi wound model. Preferably one with a feel no pain effect. I should be healing on one third of my rolls and one sixth of my opponent's rolls. This is pseudo half of time of healing and approximately a third of the time taking damage. I want units that are hardy in small numbers. I don't want to give my opponent too many easy free points. I want to focus on prioritizing killing multiwound models this will hinder heal effect dice. I want few units so I can go first. The map should be 4ft by 4ft based on what I seen previously at the store and the event point value cap. I can use the turning of the tides effect to kill crippled units that are threatening to be easy points for my opponents. I should do this cautiously though as this event seems to be geared on rewarding a cumulative sum of kill points for all the rounds. This means denying an opponent a kill point is only worth it if it will deny them from being able to rank higher than me.

Last edited by Lostroninsoul on Oct 12 2017 11:28, edited 4 times in total.

Fb Commander(manta hold): He is a good model for removing multi wound units. Normally, he would have shield drones but see stealth suits for synergy.

Path finders: They are good for marker light support. I expect them to get killed off as a priority for my opponent. I can use them at the very least as a turn 1 screen. I have 3 other built in markerlights in case they die prematurely. Another idea is to deploy them away from the stormsurge. This may force my opponent to decide if he wants to break up his remaining firepower to attack 56 points worth of units out of the way. This unit can benefit highly off hit roll buff

2 Crisis teams(manta hold): a lot of fire power. Each team will have a drone controller and 5 gun drones. The marker light drone is there as an insurance policy to keep my markerlights alive if pathfinders and stealth team gets wiped out. If the two crisis suits manta strike close together then they can have a very scary Greater Good over watch (48 CIB shots)

Stealth suits: I'm giving the suits shield generators. This should help push off -ap weapon shots. I'm entrusting the shas'ui are with a markerlight over an additional pathfinder since the shas'vre is in a sturdier unit. I'm giving them a homing beacon to deliver the FB commander in rapid fire range to maximize the chance of removing what I want dead. If I fly the stealth suits over enemies units to get close enough to undefended characters, the markerlight can possibly give the commander rerolls on 1's. A cool thing about this is the stealth suits is they can form a nice wall for the FB commander to hide behind that is more sturdy than 2 shield drones. It appears I maybe able to use the homing beacon to deploy a crisis suit unit close enough to an enemy unit to entangle it into close combat. This maybe useful if I need to turn of something like flamers for a turn (correct me if I'm wrong here)

Stormsurge: This big bad robot is rocking the near mandatory ats and shield support systems. I am leaning toward stim injector. The idea is it makes this like a 23 wound model. It will take longer to get worse with damage. Due to the map hazard and the super synergy of the heal dice rolls, the stim injector offers more value then normal here. Other options I heavily considered are EWO due to map size, velocity tracker, and target lock. It's likely I will only get the luxury of having two marker lights available on turn 1 only, so I should fire off the destroyer missles early. This unit benefits heavily on the hit roll buff with its high volume of fire.

What crazy tournament rules! The trick here is going to be high wound-count models and alpha strike. You're definitely right that the Stormsurge is going to be great, and the Stimulant Injector is going to be fantastic as you can potentially shake the crazy wounds the 'surge might be suffering.

As this is a <2000-point tournament, try to improve the efficiency of your units. Stealthsuits are durable as-is, and the Markerlight is such an expensive upgrade- a 39-point model with one Markerlight is as expensive as 5 Pathfinders! Remember that, while a Stealthsuit is 50% more durable than 5 Pathfinders, it's actually less durable (it takes fewer firing models to kill it) seeing as the Stealthsuit is likely to be within the enemy's rapid-fire range while the Pathfinders will not be. Just something to think about!

Anyway, if you pare down the points costs of a few units for the sake of efficiency, you can fit in a unit to guard that Stormsurge:

Lostroninsoul wrote:It appears I maybe able to use the homing beacon to deploy a crisis suit unit close enough to an enemy unit to entangle it into close combat. This maybe useful if I need to turn of something like flamers for a turn (correct me if I'm wrong here)

Not sure if legally you can do this, but you definitely shouldn't. Just drop in 2" away, blast away with your CIBs, then charge if you really need to get into combat.

I think the pulse driver cannon wants to be pair target lock. This would make the storm surge more mobile to adjust its shooting profile, especially if markerlights get wiped. I do like the idea of a screen. I'm tempted to run commander Shadowsun. Her evasion and drones could make her obnoxious. Coldstar is also something to think about.

So back to the homing beacon. I jumped the gun and didn't fully describe the idea. The idea is that if there is a problematic shooty unit, you can drop the crisis suits near the unit, use accompanied drones to be set up within 1" of the enemy shooty unit to entangle it in close combat. This would turn turn off Overwatch and shooting from it for a turn allowing me to deal with it later so I could focus on its protection detail or other threats by using the crisis unit to shoot at something else. If need be the crisis suits can now charge the unit ensnared in close combat with the drones without getting Overwatched. I won't be gunning to pull this off, but it's a neat trick to have available in the aresonal. I think this is allowed using homing beacon's wording.

Homing Beacon: A homing beacon may be used during your Movement phase by placing it within 1" of its unit. If there are any friendly homing beacons on the battlefield at the end of your Movement phase, one of your <SEPT> units that has been set up in a Manta hold can perform a low-altitude drop instead of a Manta strike. Set up the unit wholly within 6" of the homing beacon. The homing beacon then shorts out and is removed from the battlefield. Homing beacons are deactivated and removed from the battlefield if an enemy model ends a move within 9" of it.

Lostroninsoul wrote:I think the pulse driver cannon wants to be pair target lock. This would make the storm surge more mobile to adjust its shooting profile, especially if markerlights get wiped.

This wouldn't do anything, as the Stormsurge already has the "Walking Battleship" special rule. Also, are you possibly confusing the Pulse Driver Cannon with the Pulse Blastcannon? The Pulse Driver Cannon has no alternate shooting profiles. It's also significantly better than the Pulse Blastcannon.

Lostroninsoul wrote:I'm tempted to run commander Shadowsun. Her evasion and drones could make her obnoxious.

Shadowsun, with her -1T, -1W, and two fewer guns than the average Commander, is actually less durable and has less firepower. Her Drones are nice, but an ordinary Commander's Shield Drones are basically just as good. Would you take -1 to your Shield Drones' invulnerable save for +1T, +1W, and two more Fusion Blasters? I would!

Lostroninsoul wrote:Coldstar is also something to think about.

The Coldstar is basically for Maelstrom of War games and for sniping weak characters, of those abilities neither will be very useful in this tournament.

Lostroninsoul wrote:The idea is that if there is a problematic shooty unit, you can drop the crisis suits near the unit, use accompanied drones to be set up within 1" of the enemy shooty unit to entangle it in close combat. This would turn turn off Overwatch and shooting from it for a turn allowing me to deal with it later so I could focus on its protection detail or other threats by using the crisis unit to shoot at something else.

True, you could do this. But, this would only work against a unit so dangerous that their overwatch could kill your XV8s. If such a unit exists (30 Burna Boyz, maybe?) it can probably hurt your XV8s badly in melee too. If they really are that dangerous, just focus all of your shooting on them.

Lostroninsoul wrote:I think the pulse driver cannon wants to be pair target lock. This would make the storm surge more mobile to adjust its shooting profile, especially if markerlights get wiped.

This wouldn't do anything, as the Stormsurge already has the "Walking Battleship" special rule. Also, are you possibly confusing the Pulse Driver Cannon with the Pulse Blastcannon? The Pulse Driver Cannon has no alternate shooting profiles. It's also significantly better than the Pulse Blastcannon.

Yes, my bad. I meant pulse Blastcannon for the comments about range profile. I reread the walking battleship ability. I think the stormsurge only doesn't suffer a penalty on heavy weapons ONLY if it falls back. I suspect this because it's in the same sentence mentioning falling back. It also cost 12 points for a target lock upgrade. Why the heavier tax if it's an obsolete system upgrade for the stormsurge to take. But I will happily side with you if you can show me your logic is solid.(cause that would be sweet! ^_^)

Edit: You're right! As a RAW interpretation, the comma acts as a separation of two independent clauses. GW may have intended target lock to be useful and different functionality by them modifing the cost of the suppprt system specifically for the stormsurge, but 'they done goofed' (until a FAQ changes it. )#Winning

Arka0415 wrote:

Lostroninsoul wrote:I'm tempted to run commander Shadowsun. Her evasion and drones could make her obnoxious.

Shadowsun, with her -1T, -1W, and two fewer guns than the average Commander, is actually less durable and has less firepower. Her Drones are nice, but an ordinary Commander's Shield Drones are basically just as good. Would you take -1 to your Shield Drones' invulnerable save for +1T, +1W, and two more Fusion Blasters? I would!

Your points are valid. I was considering her because 1.I don't have a second regular commander.2. Her camouflage giving -1 to hit rolls may be useful. Her drones have that as well. She has the same amount of wounds as a commander with shield drones because she can come with command link drone with 2 shield drones. 3. I was thinking she might make my stormsurge really good at shooting with two turns of Kauyon.

Arka0415 wrote:

Lostroninsoul wrote:The idea is that if there is a problematic shooty unit, you can drop the crisis suits near the unit, use accompanied drones to be set up within 1" of the enemy shooty unit to entangle it in close combat. This would turn turn off Overwatch and shooting from it for a turn allowing me to deal with it later so I could focus on its protection detail or other threats by using the crisis unit to shoot at something else.

True, you could do this. But, this would only work against a unit so dangerous that their overwatch could kill your XV8s. If such a unit exists (30 Burna Boyz, maybe?) it can probably hurt your XV8s badly in melee too. If they really are that dangerous, just focus all of your shooting on them.

Maybe a non-flying vehicle like a tank. It would be unlikely to do much damage to the drones hitting on +5s (generally). Not our tanks of course, cause we fly :-p. Maybe surrounding an enemy transport to blow it up with all their units inside?

Crisis teams still are anti everything and provide markerlight support. The firesight marksman is light markerlight support but more so as a cheap elite place holder. Commander changes to the role of anti elite/vehicles. Stormsurge is anti-everything. Shadowsun can help defend the stormsurge. Shadowsun is likely to get FNP warlord trait because of her invulnerable save and camouflage. Being a character makes her a decent target to dump random bad dice roll damage to, if she's behind the stormsurge. I risk giving a very easy point to my opponent with the command link drone being an easy target but @ 6pts for the 1 extra wound, and the re-roll one's ability in a markerlight light list, I think it is worth the liability. I think keeping one drone out of LOS is do-able. I am kind of sad Shadow sun isn't super op at her cost. I want an excuse to play her, I think this event is as close as it will get for her :-/.

Lostroninsoul wrote:I reread the walking battleship ability. I think the stormsurge only doesn't suffer a penalty on heavy weapons ONLY if it falls back. I suspect this because it's in the same sentence mentioning falling back. It also cost 12 points for a target lock upgrade. Why the heavier tax if it's an obsolete system upgrade for the stormsurge to take. But I will happily side with you if you can show me your logic is solid.(cause that would be sweet! ^_^)

I'm pretty sure the two perks (shooting after falling back, and shooting while moving) are both independent traits granted by the "Walking Battleship" rule. Both traits are results of the fact that the Stormsurge is a colossal walker whose weapons are unaffected by movement due to its sheer size.

Arka0415 wrote:I was thinking she might make my stormsurge really good at shooting with two turns of Kauyon.

While I wouldn't personally use Shadowsun to buff a Stormsurge, that's definitely a legitimate tactic. Pop Kauyon on turn 2 and 3 (after you've gotten the anchors down) and you'll get great shooting. Personally I think I'd prefer a Missile Pod Commander who can stay relevant outside of that Kauyon buff, but Shadowsun could do the trick too.

Lostroninsoul wrote: Crisis teams still are anti everything and provide markerlight support. The firesight marksman is light markerlight support but more so as a cheap elite place holder. Commander changes to the role of anti-elite/vehicles. Stormsurge is anti-everything. Shadowsun can help defend the stormsurge. Shadowsun is likely to get FNP warlord trait because of her invulnerable save and camouflage. Being a character makes her a decent target to dump random bad dice roll damage to, if she's behind the stormsurge. I risk giving a very easy point to my opponent with the command link drone being an easy target but @ 6pts for the 1 extra wound, and the re-roll one's ability in a markerlight light list, I think it is worth the liability. I think keeping one drone out of LOS is do-able. I am kind of sad Shadow sun isn't super op at her cost. I want an excuse to play her, I think this event is as close as it will get for her :-/.

I think the new list is solid! However, the Stormsurge absolutely needs ATS. It's 8 points and makes the Stormsurge much, much more powerful. Actually, let's think a little about the Stormsurge. It's the core of the list, and needs support. It needs two Markelights right off the bat (to fire the Destroyer Missiles), it needs defensive units to guard it. Here's how I'd design a "core" for this list:

I think I can get behind that you made list very much. I will try to think of other alternatives still, just in case there's a better option. Unfortunately your list has a lot of very nice selling points(compliment). :-p. I can't believe I didn't notice the stormsurge didn't have the ATS. Great catch. I love the kroot addition. I definitely want this in my list. I don't care for the stealth suits. I do like the weapon configurations for the xv8's but not the numbers. I think I do need to get those Pathfinders in. I like Shadowsun's drones but maybe they aren't that needed if I do have the Pathfinders and kroot. Your ideas have been ever so useful, thank you.

I am certain you're right now about walking battleship ability. I feel confident I can explain it's legitimacy logically if my opponent took issue. Yes, I had to research grammar on comma use.

Lostroninsoul wrote:I think I can get behind that you made list very much. I will try to think of other alternatives still, just in case there's a better option. Unfortunately your list has a lot of very nice selling points(compliment). :-p. I can't believe I didn't notice the stormsurge didn't have the ATS. Great catch. I love the kroot addition. I definitely want this in my list. I don't care for the stealth suits. I do like the weapon configurations for the xv8's but not the numbers. I think I do need to get those Pathfinders in. I like Shadowsun's drones but maybe they aren't that needed if I do have the Pathfinders and kroot. Your ideas have been ever so useful, thank you.

Glad you like it! The main thing I'm thinking about is, how do we use Shadowsun and a Commander in such a way that we (a) get Fusion Blasters close to the enemy army, and (b) the Kauyon buff on the Stormsurge? For the time being, I think that putting Shadowsun in a forward position is best, since it means the Stormsurge-buffing Commander can stay relevant with Missile Pods and Shadowsun can still buff her Stealthsuits with the Command-Link Drone and Kauyon if need be. Just my thoughts!

I made a mathhammer Excell sheet. It has the ability factor in Kauyon. I'll be toying around it. I'm now sold on ats on crisis suits (2cib ,1ats layout specifically). I'm also sold on ats commander. I understand now why you prefer 8 pathfinders. Based on hit chance, I like 9. First two should get lighter number 1. The next 7 should get 4 markerlight hits with rerolling 1's. I'm also reconsidering pulse blast cannon. It's a 48"x48x"" map. Putting the stormsurge in the middle of a standard deployment zone should allow it to control the board nicely. I'm still tinkering

Edit:I just got my pathfinder torsos. So I can make more pathfinders from the spare bits, approximately 10. I'm now leaning to go Misslepods. The range should be synergistic with shadowsun's Kauyonx2.

Lostroninsoul wrote:I understand now why you prefer 8 pathfinders. Based on hit chance, I like 9. First two should get lighter number 1. The next 7 should get 4 markerlight hits with rerolling 1's.

I like 8x Pathfinders for a few reasons. To me, 10 is too many for a single squad, but 7 might be the ideal number. However, 7 Pathfinders can't fire their Markerlights in statistically-likely pairs of BS4+ Markerlights. So, I use the next even number, 8. 8 also happens to be the size of two old minimum-sized Pathfinder squads from the old edition, which feels nice.

Lostroninsoul wrote:I'm also reconsidering pulse blast cannon.

There might be an argument in points efficiency, but you only get one Stormsurge. Bring the biggest gun it can take. I love the 10" range profile on the Blastcannon, but the range is just too short.

Missile Pods really aren't that strong though. They cause some decent damage against vehicles with similar durability stats as a Devilfish, but that squad- even backed up by a full 5 Markerlight hits- it looking at 4-5 wounds on a Rhino. Both squads firing might take down a Rhino., and that's 600 points of models firing. Plus, with no Drone backup, they likely won't survive the enemy's return fire, seeing as one Lascannon has a high chance of killing an XV8.

I like the single Missile Pod Commander, but I'd reconsider the loadouts on those XV8s.

There might be an argument in points efficiency, but you only get one Stormsurge. Bring the biggest gun it can take. I love the 10" range profile on the Blastcannon, but the range is just too short

I actually don't like the 10" profile, the two shots are begging for the opponent to reroll any invulnerable saves. I think the 20" is better. The 30" with ap -1 from ats isn't too shabby. In a 48" map. If standard deployment is 12" from one side then I should leave very little areas that are "safe" , especially if I move 6 in up from the middle. Only units within 8" from the corners are free from the blast cannon. So on a small map I'm reconsidering it's viability as valid.

I also reconsidered the MPs.... Maybe CIBs are better. I'm also considering having the DC holding crisis suite to have different wargear. Cibx2 is ok , but 1cib+ats is questionable, maybe 2 plasma cannons might be a better combination for that single model (-3ap, strength 6, 2-4shots.).

If I don't use shadowsun I can fit a fish in the list and have my deployment drops Range from 6-9 depending on what I see. So if I know I can should be able to finish deployment first i can go to 6 drops. If I want to see how my opponent deploys I can stall with the fish contents.

Lostroninsoul wrote:I actually don't like the 10" profile, the two shots are begging for the opponent to reroll any invulnerable saves. I think the 20" is better. The 30" with ap -1 from ats isn't too shabby.

That's why you use the Stormsurge's main gun as a predator/executioner weapon, blasting tanks that don't have invulnerable saves (get re-rolling 1s to hit and drop your anchors, and you're killing a Rhino or Devilfish every turn!) while using the Destroyer Missiles to kill tanks equipped with invulnerable saves etc.

I'm leaning toward the 1499-point list too. However, I'd definitely get that 6th CIB on the first XV8 squad, you can get the extra points by dropping the one Breacher, combining the squads, and dropping one Pathfinder.

So I was thinking about your suggestionsI think combining the breachers into one unit is great. I think I should cut the foresight marksman and go to a patrol. The one cp is cool but is a little restrictive for the 24 points. The marker light marksman offers is only a 66% chance to hit any way.

I'm thinking I may want to run a patrol. This gives me 5 heavy hitting units

I like the marker drone idea. Even without DC they have a good chance to put at least 1 markerlight on a target. Savior protocols also gives my crisis suits some safety.. dc+8markerlights + darkstrider and a 10 man pathfinder team gives me 2 way to get 5 lights on a target, so I can use pathfinders to screen the storm surge

Wow ...scrap that. I should drop the darkstrider and breachers. I should go drone-fish with cadre fireblade +11 drones. It will allow me to use the Outrider dettachment for similar value but since I want the drone controller so bad the list would benefit with drone-fish over the breacher/fish I need to edit my list.

You keep doing this- don't combine ATS and Drone Controller on the same model. You end up with an ATS buffing a single CIB with is a huge waste of points, and only results in your army having more than too many Markerlights. Your army needs more threats- that's why the Gun Drones were in there. Also, what will you use to guard the Stormsurge? With the Blastcannon and no screening units, it does feel a bit exposed in this list.